


see me for a lifetime

by Areiton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Cannon Divergent, Derek is a Good Friend, Derek-centric, First Meetings, Fluff, Halloween, Kid!Stiles, M/M, Past Fic, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, The Hale Fire, with a little angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 17:42:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12063894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: The first time Derek Hale saw Stiles, he was bleeding.OrFive times Derek saw Stiles, and one time Stiles saw Derek.





	see me for a lifetime

The first time Derek Hale saw Stiles, he was bleeding. Laura had wrestled him into submission, flashing eyes and fangs while Mama was busy with Cora, and he’d come running, all injured dignity and big seafoam eyes brimming with tears. 

The human woman sitting next to Mama made him stop still, and he stared at her as she laughed with Mama, cooing at Cora in her lap. 

It was so odd to see someone not Pack holding his baby sister that it took Derek a moment to realize Mama  _ was _ holding a baby. He crept close, slowly, head tilted just so--but his Alpha didn’t respond to the signs of submission, just drew him to her side with a smile. 

The baby was sleeping, a tiny fragile thing with speckles of brown across pale skin and dark lashes feathered across his cheeks. Derek stared at him, listening to quick beat of his heart and the soft  _ shush-shush-shush _ of his breath and all his anger and hurt at Laura drained away. 

“Whas’ his name?” Derek asked, glancing wide eyed up at his mother. 

It was the human who answered. “We call him Stiles,” she said, smiling. 

Distantly, he was aware of Mama introducing him, that the woman’s name was Claudia, but he was focused on Stiles, on the little face he was making as Derek peered down at him. 

A drop of blood dripped from his chin and landed, fat and wet, on the baby’s forehead and Stiles came awake. 

Derek stared into his eyes for a moment, what seemed in that summer day, to be an endless moment of golden eyes and the thud-thud-thud of his heart. 

Then Stiles screwed up his faced and  _ screamed _ . 

It startled Derek so much, hurt his little ears so much that he stumbled back a step, and fell hard on the ground, where he stared, near tears and befuddled as Mama and the nice human lady fussed over two suddenly crying babies. 

 

~

 

The first time he saw Stiles near his house, he was running through the woods. Laura was darting ahead of him, laughing, black hair streaming as she raced him. He moved slower, keeping pace with Cora as she ran. She was fast for a werewolf, but still a baby and he worried when they left her too far behind. 

Laura teased him for it, but rubbed her cheek against his hair, and he would preen under the affection. 

Even at eight, he knew who his alpha would be. 

Cora was snarling as she chased them, baby fangs tiny and sharp in her little face and Stiles shrieked from the yard when they stumbled out of the woods, Cora biting at his wrist affectionately. 

For a moment, they were all frozen, Claudia and Talia. Laura and Derek. Even the wind. 

Stiles always was good at shattering those stillnesses. He shrieked again, lunging so hard in his mother's arms that her grip slipped and-- 

Derek moved, ‘wolf fast and instinctive, snatching the toddler from the air as effortlessly as he would Cora. 

Stiles giggled and grabbed one pointy ear, yanking  _ hard,  _ hard enough that Derek whined, low in his throat. 

“Puppy!” the little boy shrieked again, happily and Derek looked at his Mama, miserably.

Laura was giggling, behind him. 

“Talia,” Mrs Claudia said, amused, “I think we need to talk.” 

Derek sighed in time with his mother and stared sourly at Stiles. 

When he snapped his teeth at the toddler's prodding fingers--carefully, all empty threat--Stiles giggled and Derek smiled, a little bit. 

 

~

 

He saw the boy about two seconds before Stiles saw him, and waved manically,  shouting “Derek!”  

“It’s sweet,” Laura says and Derek groans, letting his head drop. 

“Don’t,” he begs and Laura’s smile went feral with delight before Stiles barrels into him. 

He used to think Stiles was going to outgrow his clumsiness. When he was a baby tripping over his feet in the preserve, it almost made sense. But then he was four and five and his clumsiness just got  _ worse _ . 

Derek has seen him trip over flat ground, and lost track of the number of times he’s caught the boy as he fell. 

He caught Stiles now as the kid rebounds off his legs, righting him and sighing as the boy leans back to peer up at him, wide eyed and grinning. 

Stiles has lost another tooth, Derek notices. His grin is lopsided and gappy and Derek feels a reluctant swell of affection for the boy. 

“Hey, Batman,” he says. 

“Mama is taking me an’ Scott to the corn maze, wanna come wit’ us?” he asks, almost bouncing and Derek glances up. Claudia is waiting patiently with a small, dark haired boy in a Superman costume. 

“I can’t,” Derek says, pointing at Cora. “She wants to go through Beacon Heights.” 

Stiles makes an approving noise that made Derek’s wolf preen a little. “We went there. They have good candy,” the six year old says with all the gravity of a scholar. 

Then he frowns, almost critically. 

“Derek,” he whines, “you aren’t wearing a costume!” 

Derek sighs. Cora had dressed as a vampire bunny because his sister was ridiculous and indecisive, with sharp plastic fangs, fluffy ears and a tail, and a black nose painted on her little face. 

Laura was dressed as a sexy werewolf because she was a shit who amused herself to no end, fur cuffs at her ankles and wrists, long runner legs flashing in the waning moon, a tight skirt and corset leaving little to the imagination and Derek was torn between wanting to bundle her into his coat and embarrassed to be seen standing next to her. 

And he had skipped a costume altogether, for the first time. 

“Yeah, uh. Not this year,” he said. 

Stiles frowned. “Just do the teeth, Derek!” 

Derek huffs  a laugh and rolls his eyes and hears the dry voice of his sister saying, “Yeah, baby brother. Just do the teeth.” 

“Get outta here,” Derek says, nudging the affectionate kid away and he scampers back towards his mom, waving and laughing. 

Cora makes an impatient noise and starts dragging Derek toward Beacon Heights and he tugs back on her grip, calling, “Hey, Stiles!” 

The boy whips around and Derek let’s his fangs drop and howls. Laura is laughing and Mrs Claudia is giving him a concerned look, and he knows his sisters will tease him for days. 

But the way Stiles laughs and throws his head back to imitate Derek’s howl makes him smile for the rest of the night, vampire and werewolf sisters be damned. 

 

~

 

It wasn’t that he was  _ looking  _ for Stiles. He wasn’t, really. It was more that he was wondering why the BBQ in the Stilinski’s back yard was so  _ quiet.  _ There was none of the familiar chatter and high pitched laughter that always filled his senses when Stiles was around. Just the quiet hum of the adults conversation, and Laura on the phone with Uncle Peter, complaining that she had to attend this damn thing. 

Again. 

The scent of charring meat and too many humans was filling the backyard, the sweet sticky scent of fruit and sugary popsicles, noise and so many people. 

Derek took a deep breath and-- _ there.  _

The familiar rabbit fast heartbeat he would pick out of anywhere. 

He follows the quick steady rhythm into the house, upstairs and into a room that smells so strongly of  _ Stiles _ it drowns out the scent of the crowd outside, drowns out the cooking food and the flowers Mrs Claudia grows. 

There’s only the familiar scent of Stiles, sweaty and clean, cut grass and fresh grass. 

He’s sitting cross legged against the wall, glaring at a baseball in his hand. 

Derek sits next to him and Stiles huffs a sigh. 

“Scott left,” he mumbles, and Derek understands suddenly. Since Stiles was six and met Scott on the playground, the boys had been inseparable. 

“Just for a few weeks.”

Stiles sniffles and nods, but -

“He’s my only friend,” Stiles confesses, his voice breaking, and Derek gets it. The sour scent around the boy. “And Mama has been sick, so she's sleeping and I'm all alone.”

He’s  _ lonely.  _

Derek nudges his knee and Stiles scowls, so he does it again, a little firmer, until the boy finally looks up at him, glaring through tear streaked cheeks and and trembling chin. 

He's known Stiles for years, has tolerated the boy's chatter and clumsiness, and dogged affection. But he's always held himself a little aloof, away from Stiles as much as he could. 

“I'm your friend,” Derek blurts out, unable to stop himself. 

Stiles’ head snaps up, and his eyes are wide and hopeful and Derek swallows. “Come on,” he says, before Stiles can demand anything. “I'm hungry. Then we’ll play catch.” 

“You're always hungry,” Stiles says cheekily, but he lets Derek pull him to his feet and herd him to the door, giggling when the werewolf growls at him. 

And when he falls asleep during the fireworks, slumped into Derek’s shoulder and exhausted from running after the wolves, he smells sweet and happy and if Derek preens with the knowledge that he did that, it is far too dark for anyone to see. 

 

~

 

He watches from the back, dressed in black pants and a shirt that is too tight across his shoulders. The air is almost offensively cheerful, sunshine and spring and new beginnings carried on it like a false promise. 

There are a lot of people there and his mother sits quiet and composed at his side. He thinks about asking her why she didn't fix this, give Mrs Claudia the bite. 

He doesn't ask. He is sixteen and sullen and doesn't talk to anyone in his family as much as he should. 

Except Peter, and not since Paige….

He focuses on the front of the service. Under the scent of people and lilies, he can find Stiles, that familiar scent that has always pulled Derek's attention and curiosity, even when he didn't, mean for it to. 

It's strange now, muted and twisted with grief and anger and Derek watched his little hunched shoulders, the way he sits, too small and still at his father's side. 

It always strikes Derek as  _ wrong  _ when he sees the younger boy subdued. 

The service ends and it's quiet as the coffin is lowered, quiet except for one boy’s heartbroken sobs. 

After everyone stands and begins to file away, Derek pauses, looking back at him. 

Stiles is kneeling at the side of his mother's grave and he looks tiny, alone, broken. 

Derek makes a small noise and starts towards him and Talia catches his arm. 

“No, Derek. Leave him,” she says firmly. 

“But,” he begins, and she sighs. 

“He needs his pack now, baby.” 

The urge to argue, to say  _ I am his pack,  _ is so strong it startles him, shocks him into following his mother.

He glances back once more and Stiles sees him. He looks away and Derek feels his heart drops. 

It is the last time he will see the boy for years. 

 

**

 

“What are you doing here?” A sharp voice cuts through the preserve, through his idle ramble, cuts through  _ years _ and Stiles goes silent, speechless, staring at the dark, scowling young man. 

He vaguely hears Scott saying something, explaining, and there’s a silent glare, before  _ he _ is stalking away.

Scott starts talking, about work, like Stiles’ world didn’t shift, and maybe that makes sense.

For as long as he’s known Scott, he’s known Derek longer. But the Hales were always distant--they occupied a part of his life that Scott didn’t, and then, they were gone, a part of life that was his mother’s. 

He drops Scott off at work and drives home, before he curses, abrupt and angry. 

Because it’s been six  _ years _ since he last saw Derek, and he hates that he missed the guy, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t. 

He missed Derek almost as much as he missed his mom. 

The road to the Hale house is familiar, like an old song he forgot the words to, until the first bars of music played and it all rushed back. 

The house, though--it doesn’t look familiar. It’s still a charred wreck, and it  _ hurts _ something in his gut, when he walks through the woods and emerges in front of it. 

This house holds some of his favorite memories and he hates that this is what it’s become. 

“What are you doing here?” 

He isn’t surprised, really. Derek always has seen him long before Stiles noticed him. It’s almost comforting to know that hasn’t changed. 

“You’re back,” Stiles says, almost stupidly. 

Derek’s face goes tighter, but he nods. 

“Why?” Stiles prods, gentle and Derek huffs a sigh. 

“Laura came back. She’s missing.” He hesitates and then, “I’m not staying, Stiles. I  _ can’t _ stay.” 

And he gets that. There’s nothing left for Derek here, not anymore. Not since the fire. He was just a kid, when the fire killed the Hales and Mrs. Talia, and Derek left town. But even then, he understood  _ why _ they left. 

“I know,” Stiles says, and something in Derek’s shoulders relax a little, startled. “Let me help you,” Stiles asks and Derek hesitates. 

“It’s  _ dangerous.”  _

Stiles nods, “But I can research. Right? Talk to my dad and see what I can find out about her.” 

Derek hesitates a moment longer before he nods, and extends his hand. “Give me your number. You can text me what you find.” 

Stiles tries very hard not to show his relief and glee, but from the twitch of Derek’s lips, he doesn’t do a good job. 

When his phone is back in his hand, he saves Derek’s contact info and points over his shoulder. “Dad’ll be waiting. But I’ll. Um. Text you?” 

Derek nods, face blank but his eyes are amused--even years later, Stiles can read his eyes. 

He gets to the Jeep before he spins and Derek is still there, waiting, patiently watching him. 

“I missed you,” he blurts out and Derek sighs. 

Glances down and then gives Stiles a very shy smile. It's familiar, and pleased, and reminds Stiles of his mother and a large laughing family and a quiet boy who sat at his side and listened to everything he said, and every good memory he has from childhood. Even shaded with a life Stiles doesn’t know and the fire--that smile is familiar and comforting. 

It feels like coming home. 

Stiles is in his room, considering his homework when his phone goes off and he sees a text. His heart trips, hard and excited, as he reads the new text from Derek. 

 

**_I missed you too._ **

 

It’s such a small admission, but it-- _ everything _ that has happened since he dragged Scott into the woods, but especially  _ this _ \--feels like a new beginning. 

  
  



End file.
